As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

WOLVERINE vol 7 #38
“Last Mutant Standing, part 2”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan José Ryp
Colour artist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine and Captain America in action, surrounded by … well, obscured figures, because the identity of the villain is a reveal halfway through the issue. They’re wearing the hats of typical Legacy House agents, though.

As with the previous issue, we get some actual lettering on the cover, which seems to be a thing for this “series of team-ups” arc. (If “arc” is the right word – it’s really more a series of linked one-shots.)

PAGES 2-4. Logan approaches Steve Rogers in a bar.

Logan’s explanation for how he’s evading the Orchis patrols is simply that people don’t recognise him out of costume. Which… Wolverine’s pretty recognisable, isn’t he? It’s not too hard to find stories where members of the general public recognise the short guy with the unusual hair on sight. It happens in the recent Fallen Friend one-shot when he shows up to Kamala Khan’s memorial service. I know you have to turn a blind eye to this sort of thing for the book to function at all during “Fall of X”, but maybe just go with “he’s good at dodging the patrols”?

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-MEN RED vol 2 #16
“The Fall of Prometheus”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Yildiray Çinar
Colour artist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. The Horsemen pose in front of Port Prometheus.

PAGES 2-4. Craig Marshall’s ship approaches Arakko.

Craig Marshall was last seen in issue #14, with the two kids Loolo and Kobb. In that issue, he was simply wondering about leaving his part of Arakko for Port Prometheus, where Peter Corbeau had offered him a posting. Evidently he either accepted that posting, or otherwise made contact with Corbeau once war broke out. The fact that Kobb hasn’t talked since A.X.E.: Judgment Day was mentioned by Craig in issue #11.

Peter Corbeau makes his first actual appearance in X-Men Red here; he’s a NASA scientist who had some minor appearances in early Claremont X-Men. I don’t think he’s been seen on panel in years. He’s still wearing his yachting cap, which is nice.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-FORCE vol 6 #45
“A Slip of the Pen”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colour artist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller and Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1. A weird image of Colossus, Quentin Quire and Wolverine (Laura) as prisoners of Mikhail Rasputin with multiple perspectives and a kind of 3D effect. The solicitation for this issue read: “X-Force is held captive. But what powerful force can keep Wolverine, Colossus, Omega Red and Quentin Quire from their compatriots, and what will this mean for the future of mutantkind? And, as the Chronicler focusses his powers on a new subject, how will his control shift the balance of power in the Fall of X era?” That last sentence is certainly in this issue, but Wolverine, Omega Red and Quentin Quire only have brief cameos in this issue (a single panel of each of them, on page 23).

PAGES 2-4. Chronicler recaps the plot, and Colossus kidnaps Jun Wei.

The Chronicler opens by reflecting on how Colossus was perfectly placed to be the first person narrator of his story about Krakoa precisely because he’s a secondary character in the grand scheme of things; it accords with his sense of how this sort of story ought to work, and as we’ve seen, Chronicler’s reality-warping powers are constrained by what he can rationalise as a sensible story. Mind you, given how often Chronicler has taken to writing directly about his control of Colossus and the way in which Colossus is being manipulated, this book must be a very strange read.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

IMMORTAL X-MEN #16
“The Island of Doctor Xavier”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Apocalypse – or rather, the version of Apocalypse from the desert landscape – with the Phoenix Force in the background. I think it’s meant to be perching on his left arm (note the claws). His Pharaoh trappings reflect the role that he’s been cast in for this re-enactment of the Book of Exodus.

PAGE 2. Shaw and Selene monitor Krakoa.

Recap: The External Gate was created in Excalibur #12 from the (involuntary) sacrifice of most of Selene’s fellow Externals. Now that the mutants are out of the way, Selene wants to secure the Gate and bring back the Externals. Charles Xavier has been repelling all the landing parties by turning them back telepathically. Last issue,  Selene and Sebastian Shaw tried sending a group of soldiers with psi-blockers. Professor X responded by tearing them apart, apparently with his growing telekinetic powers; that’s the red smear they see next to the External Gate. This is not what Shaw was trying to achieve, and while it’s unlikely he cares about the soldiers himself, it hasn’t advanced his goals of actually profiting from his notional ownership of Krakoa.

It’s worth saying here that we don’t actually see Professor X killing the soldiers last issue. We see the fight starting, and then the next panel takes place the following morning and shows their bodies scattered by the Gate. We’ll come back to that.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-MEN vol 6 #27
“Road Trip”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Phil Noto
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. A singularly unpleasant image of Cyclops as an Orchis prisoner with his eyes sewn shut, as seen in issue #25. This has very little to do with the content of the issue – Cyclops appears in it for one page, in which he’s asleep. The actual story mostly involves the X-Men going to ask the Fantastic Four for help. The solicitation for this issue, though, seems to suggest that this was meant to be a Cyclops story. (“When Cyclops joined this iteration of the X-Men, his pitch was simple – ‘I am the X-Men.’ If so, the enemies of the X-Men seem to have this fight all sewn up.”) That’s the second issue in a row where the cover and solicitation have born very little resemblance to the content.

PAGES 2-6. Shadowkat breaks into the Orchis facility at Randall’s Island.

Last issue, Emma Frost had asked Shadowkat to focus on finding Cyclops (something which Kate seemed to have been paying lip service to up to that point, in favour of her own priorities). They were going to leave together to look for him until Emma got derailed by her wedding subplot. Shadowkat headed off anyway, and apparently she has indeed turned her attention to it this time.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

REALM OF X #2
“Lost Lamb”
Writer: Torunn Grønbekk
Artist: Diógenes Neves
Colour artist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Clayton Crain
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Lauren Amaro

COVER / PAGE 1: Magik fights Typhoid. Nothing very much like this happens in the issue.

PAGES 2-3. Flashback: Curse at the Hellfire Gala.

This is X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 from Curse’s perspective. We did indeed see her in that issue, and it wasn’t clear what she was doing at the Gala in the first place, given that she’s a child. She explains here that she snuck in with some friends.

On Curse’s account, when Professor X told the mutants to leave through the gates, everyone panicked, and Magik bundled her through the gate. Curse grudgingly accepts that she’s being forced to leave, but lashes out with her powers, apparently forcing her group to go somewhere different from everywhere else. This isn’t what we saw in the original story: in that issue, Curse is picked up and bundles through the gate by Marrow, Magik, Mirage and Dust, all of whom are apparently under Professor X’s control. Curse uses her powers to curse Professor X directly, just as she is forced to leave (“Damn you, Charles. Curse you, you bald piece of…”)

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

JEAN GREY vol 2 #2
“Dead Reckoning”
Writer: Louise Simonson
Artist: Bernard Chang
Colourist: Marcelo Maiolo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad

COVER / PAGE 1: Jean with a Phoenix-possessed Cyclops.

PAGES 2-3. Jean recaps the original Phoenix story.

For those just joining us, Jean was killed in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023, and this miniseries appears to follow her disembodied mind as it replays various events from her life and imagines how things might have played out if she had made different choices. In other words, it’s a series of “What If?” stories, but presumably in one way or another, this is setting up her resurrection at the end of “Fall of X”.

“Back when I was practically a child, I chose wisely…” Jean is referring here to the events covered in issue #1, where she returned from her foray to the future (i.e., the Brian Bendis run), and chose to erase her memory of it and let her life follow its existing course. Issue #1 played out what would have happened if she had done otherwise, and naturally it didn’t go well.

The Phoenix storyline. For the most part, these two pages are a faithful recap of events from X-Men #100-101 (1976), since the rest of the story only makes sense if you know how it played out the first time around. And even though this is a very well known storyline in X-Men continuity, it’s still nearly 50 years old by this point.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

UNCANNY SPIDER-MAN #1
“Park Life”
Writer: Si Spurrier
Artist: Lee Garbett
Colour artist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
Editor-in-chief: C B Cebulski

UNCANNY SPIDER-MAN is the latest iteration of the book formerly known as Way of X and Legion of X. We last saw Nightcrawler in X-Men: Before the Fall – Sons of X #1 (which was effectively a Legion of X special), in which he was freed from Orchis and reunited with the “Hopesword” that Margali Szardos conjured out of him in Legion of X #10. Then he decided to leave Krakoa, which is why he wasn’t around for the Hellfire Gala.

COVER / PAGE 1. Nightcrawler in action as “Spider-Man”.

PAGES 2-3. John Romita tribute pages.

PAGES 4-9. “Spider-Man” defeats some organ thieves.

Shocker tech. The thieves are apparently using the technology of perennial Spider-Man D-list villain the Shocker – and they’re so far down the pecking order that they think it’s impressive.

“Entschulgigung.” “Excuse me.”

Nightcrawler is wearing a modified Spider-Man costume with a mask, though he’s not exactly going overboard to disguise himself – his tail is in full view and his unusual hands and feet are also clearly visible. Plus, he’s still wearing his red and black colour scheme. This seems to me more of an exercise in plausible deniability.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

DARK X-MEN vol 2 #2
“Wings Off Flies”
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artist: Jonas Scharf
Colour artist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Well, that’s Madelyne fighting Maggott while Gambit and Gimmick watch, which in the story itself is no more than a mild argument. Featuring a rare 2023 outing for the brokeback pose, albeit innovatively viewed from overhead, it’s the worst cover I can remember seeing on an X-book in quite some time.

PAGE 2. Flashbacks: The alternate Goblin Queen’s life.

We saw this Goblin Queen at the end of last issue, when the captured Archangel was delivered to an Orchis black site.

“There are few worlds throughout the Multiverse in which Madelyne Pryor lives a good, simple life.” Presumably because she was created by Mr Sinister as a clone of Jean Grey for his own schemes. Therefore, in any world where she exists, she’s almost certain to get sucked into Sinister’s plans in some way, unless he gets defeated before that can happen.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

WOLVERINE vol 7 #37
“Last Mutant Standing, part 1”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan José Ryp
Colour artist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine fights the Hulk, with the three Wolverine clones in the background. Not really what happens in the issue, but close enough for a cover.

PAGES 2-3. Wolverine recaps the premise of “Fall of X”.

After last month’s diversion to do a crossover with Ghost Rider, Wolverine joins “Fall of X” proper. And for the benefit of anyone reading this in trade, Logan opens the issue by recapping the plot in narration (quite effectively, actually). Since the central themes of this book over the last year have included Wolverine’s disillusionment with the Krakoan authorities, and Beast thinking he’s above the law, Wolverine actually has slightly more sympathy for anti-mutant sentiment than some of his teammates, though obviously not to the point of sympathising with Orchis themselves.

The Orchis roadblock includes a robot with adamantium claws of its own. This is one of the X-Sentinels that Orchis created in X-Men #22 using the adamantium skeletons left behind on the Orchis Forge space station after X-Force’s repeated suicide assaults on the station, as shown in Inferno #1. We also saw an X-Sentinel in X-Force #44, Percy’s other “Fall of X” series.

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